After a few years of relative silence, Massive Attack returns with Heligoland. The album is their fifth studio release and by far, one of their most trippily intriguing works. The album features the now core trio as well as a myriad of guest vocalists including Damon Albarn, Hope Sandoval, Martina Topley-Bird, Guy Garvey, and Tunde Adebimpe.
The thing about post-debut album Massive Attack is that you have to be either a huge Trip-Hop fan or in exactly the right mood to really get deep enough into this music to leave with something. Their music is not easily digested, nor is it easily relegated to the background. This is probably far truer on Heligoland than on their prior releases even. The album is a mix of lounge influenced, introspective, soulful, near-crooning (see “Flat of the Blade,” “Pary for Rain,” and “Rush Minute”) backed by a series of off-beat noises and wonderful instrumentation and more upbeat, poppier, oddities, punctuated by smooth yet fascinating voices (see the breathy “Babel,” the singer/songwriter feel of “Saturday Come Slow,” and the mid-tempo echoes of “Girl I Love You”).
All in all, if you are looking for something experimental that is not so far out there that all melody or sense of structure is lost, then Heligoland may be exactly what you have been searching for. Massive Attack’s name is synonymous with quality and genius, but if you are like me, then it takes a couple glasses on wine and a 2 A.M. start time for it to really sink in. Regardless, it’s worth the late night and the extra cash for the wine.
Reviewed by Mark Fisher
